Lauren Groff–“Dogs Go Wolf” (New Yorker, August 28, 2017)

Camp Cope recently played PhilaMOCA, but it sold out so quickly I didn’t even have a chance of going. Camp Cope plays a deceptively simple poppy punk that really allows the excellent lyrics to shine through. I love the sound of Kelly-Dawn “Kelso” Hellmrich’s bass lines, which contribute a great melody while singer guitarist Georgia “Maq” McDonald plays a somewhat muted guitar, with a ton of power in here voice.

Camp Cope’s Tiny Desk performance opened — fittingly — with “The Opener,” a song about overcoming the obnoxious, exhausting and all-too-common sexism endemic to the music industry.

Great lyrics:

You worked so hard but we were ‘just lucky’
To ride those coat tails into infinity
And all my success has got nothing to do with me
Yeah, tell me again how there just aren’t that many girls in the music scene

It’s another all-male tour preaching equality
It’s another straight cis man who knows more about this than me
It’s another man telling us we’re missing a frequency, love ya Kelly

[Lyrics genius explains this last line: The bass lines in many Camp Cope songs, contributed by bassist Kelly-Dawn Helmrich, are played primarily in the upper register of that instrument, so there are few low bass frequencies in their music. On the average Camp Cope clip on Youtube, you can usually find a dozen or so dudes helpfully pointing this out in the comments.].

It’s a stunning and deeply gratifying performance; Maq lists off what exes, industry insiders and fellow musicians have said to undermine the band with a measured determination that sometimes tips into a full-throated, impassioned cry. Bands like Camp Cope get told they’re “just lucky,” that they “can’t fill up a room,” that they should “book a smaller venue.” But when Maq roars from behind the Tiny Desk, “See how far we’ve come not listening to you,” she makes it clear which voice deserves the attention.

I love the dismissive final line:

“Yeah, just get a female opener, that’ll fill the quota.”

The second song, “The Face of God” features complex guitar patterns from Maq and (at the start) a simpler bass line). But once the song takes off, the bass starts throwing in notes all over the instrument.

is a stunning, delicate song about feeling lonely and distraught in the aftermath of sexual violence. It’s a standout from the band’s debut album, How to Socialise & Make Friends, and shows what Camp Cope does so well: using tiny moments of introspection to illuminate life’s bewildering, terrifying, isolating aspects — especially as they apply to women. You can hear equal parts conviction and desperation in Maq’s voice as she sings:

I saw it, the face of god
And he turned himself away from me and said I did something wrong
That somehow what happened to me was my fault.

Camp Cope must usually play more raucously live since after “Face of God” Maq laughed, “We’ve never done this before — we’ve never been quiet. Not once in our entire lives!” Hellmrich joked that it was perhaps a “good lesson” to “rock out in your mind.”

The band closed its set with “Keep Growing,” an older track about autonomy and heartache. It opens with Sarah “Thomo” Thompson’s drums, simply and direct and then Hellmrich’s bass is at the fore once again, playing a cool melody.

Elsewhere, it might be too easy to tune into Camp Cope’s powerful message and overlook the strength of the band’s songcraft. But at the Tiny Desk, you can’t miss it: Maq’s gargantuan voice; Hellmrich’s clever, melodic basslines; Thompson’s stoic drumming.

I wish even more that I’d seen them in a small venue while I had the chance.

[READ: August 21, 2017] “Dogs Go Wolf”

This was a peculiar story that felt like it was part of a larger story. It felt incomplete and yet also that it had accomplished everything it intended. Which was odd. In the same way that the title makes sense but only when you think about it.

I enjoyed the way the story worked its way backwards. Two sisters are on an island. They are young (four and seven) and they are alone. Even the dog that was with them has been strangely quiet lately. The dog was mean and although they missed its companionship they weren’t sad to see it go.

The big sister tells the little sister stories to comfort her. But they can only go so far when food is scarce, when the generator has run out and when they have little else to do.

Smokey Joe and Melanie were the most recent inhabitants of the island. Then one day, after hearing a message on the CB, they took off on their boat, leaving the girls behind.

Exactly one day earlier, their mother and her boyfriend Ernesto went out in his boat. She said they’d be gone an hour or two, but they hadn’t come back at all.

Two days before that the girls were in Fort Lauderdale where their mother excitedly told them they were going on a boat ride.

Before that they lived in Traverse City (Michigan). Before Traverse City was San Jose. Before that, Brookline. Before Brookline was Phoenix with a man who may have been the little sister’s father. Before Phoenix the older sister couldn’t remember anything.

The rest of the story shows us how the girls (barely) survive. They eat cans of food that were left. They boil water. They eat frozen meals once the generator dies. They catch crabs. But there was precious little to eat. Soon their ribs were visible.

They heard a boat–but how to know if the travelers were friendly? Instinct is all they have

There is a time, when the children are hallucinating where the story flashes forward to the girls when they are older, so you know that they are not going to die there. Although the story lets you wonder whether it would have been better if they did.